I'm a 100/200 meter sprinter and planning to gain around 15-20 pounds of hard muscle. I am currently 5'7 140 pounds and running times of 11.4 and 23.0. I was wondering if I was to pack on some muscle will it decrease my times making me a better sprinter and more built figure. Any help, suggestions?
Gaining muscle helps times?
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Participant
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Participant
Gaining upper body muscles arent really gonna help you become faster… you might be able to swing your arms faster, but you dont wanna load on too much muscle. Leg muscles are a good idea, but im thinking more of doing squats with one of those bench bars. I personally think if you load extra body weight that you should keep running (2 miles a day), and i think 15-20 pounds is way too much. I dont know how other ppl feel though.
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Participant
The thing I would focus on is strength. If you get stronger building muscles will be a by-product of that. Get stronger and your times will improve.
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Participant
Gaining upper body muscles arent really gonna help you become faster… you might be able to swing your arms faster, but you dont wanna load on too much muscle. Leg muscles are a good idea, but im thinking more of doing squats with one of those bench bars. I personally think if you load extra body weight that you should keep running (2 miles a day), and i think 15-20 pounds is way too much. I dont know how other ppl feel though.
A sprinter running mileage??
You cannot just develop the lower body and not develop the upper body. It just won't work like that. Some coaches (CF for example) believe that the body as a whole is an organism and strength gained in the upper body will aid in strength in the lower body and vice versa.
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Participant
Yeah, I've been working out for about 4 weeks and my bench has went up 40 lbs. I only work my legs once a week and squats have increased dramatically. I also gained 5 lbs in the process but I feel its muscle. My workout is like this:
Mon-Chest/Calves
Tues- Back
Wed- Legs
Thur- Shoulders/ Traps
Fri- ArmsThis has helped me gained alot of strength. ]
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Participant
As you become a faster sprinter the muscles in your body will grow and become stronger as result of the force that your legs apply to the ground.
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KeymasterIncreasing muscle mass will only help to a certain point. With increased mass comes increased strength and power but you need to make sure that you're strength and power gains are outpacing any weight gains you are making. In most cases, athlete's have an optimal weight. This would be the weight at which their strength and power with respect to their body weight would be the highest.
Off-topic: I personally wouldn't advise running milage for a sprinter, especially a short sprinter.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
I've gained 5 lbs. so far and my strength to weight ratio has went from 1.07:1 to 1.36:1. Big increase for little weight gain.
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Participant
Yeah, I've been working out for about 4 weeks and my bench has went up 40 lbs. I only work my legs once a week and squats have increased dramatically. I also gained 5 lbs in the process but I feel its muscle. My workout is like this:
Mon-Chest/Calves
Tues- Back
Wed- Legs
Thur- Shoulders/ Traps
Fri- ArmsThis has helped me gained alot of strength. ]
If you want to be an athlete, why in the world are you training like a bodybuilder?
Lyle
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Participant
A sprinter running mileage??
You cannot just develop the lower body and not develop the upper body.
I know you have to develop upper body muscles as well… what i was trying to say was dont workout like a body builder cus 15-20 pounds is way too much.
If you think 2 miles is alot… ive got news for you buddy, its nothing. A sprinter cant just do short distance stuff the whole day, that will get him strong but he wont have any endurance at all.
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Participant
What country's national record?
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Participant
Everybody's body is different though. You shouldn't make a plan that you're going to gain so much weight in muscle. Just keep training and however much benefit you gain from it the better. Weight training will help as long as you don't go overboard.
Look at Maurice Greene though, he looks like a bodybuilder now, I bet if he cut down on some muscle he'd be back up near the top again.
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Participant
Endurance for what? Aerobic endurance is not an important part of the sprint event. Speed Endurance is, and it's not developed by running 2 miles.
I didnt mean endurance, Every coach ive heard talked about it including Coach Frye of the University of South Carolina has said that even a sprinter needs that 2 miles. Without those 2 miles which is nothing, then the sprinter will allways come accross that finish line and fall to the ground. 2 miles wont build you any endurance, if you want real endurance you should run something like 6-10 miles a day. I can tell, youve never done X-Country before.
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Participant
[quote author="Mister C" date="1123800200"]
Endurance for what? Aerobic endurance is not an important part of the sprint event. Speed Endurance is, and it's not developed by running 2 miles.I didnt mean endurance, Every coach ive heard talked about it including Coach Frye of the University of South Carolina has said that even a sprinter needs that 2 miles. Without those 2 miles which is nothing, then the sprinter will allways come accross that finish line and fall to the ground. 2 miles wont build you any endurance, if you want real endurance you should run something like 6-10 miles a day. I can tell, youve never done X-Country before.
[/quote]A 100m sprinter is working in the ATP/CP pathyway, why does he have any need of building aerobic endurance of any sort?
200m is just entering glycolysis, same question.
Ok, at 400m and 800m and up, yeah.
Short sprinter? He needs work capacity to handle training volume/intensity, better built with extensive tempo or bodyweight GPP circuits rather than slogging miles if you ask me. And I know crap about sprinting.
And wht does X-country have to do with the short sprints? I mean, other than nothing.
Lyle
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Participant
Just a side note, the better aerobic condition an athlete the faster they regenerate their ATP/CP system. As mike has stated in earlier posts, elite sprinters who do 2 hour sprint workouts get all the aerobic benefit they need. At the HS level, there probably still needs to be some conditioning of the aerobic system for short sprinters for recoveries between races since most of them run 3-4 races at each meet, because most HS sprinters can't do a 2-3 hour session on the track with the intensities per rep and volumes that elite sprinters can do. So there is some need for a conditioned aerobic system in the short sprints, although in-season @ HS level if you have sprinters that can only give you 1 good effort a meet, you'll have to wait later in the year to expect good times from multiple races, while generally you would want to narrow down their races to 2 or 3 per meet later in the year.
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I am not actually agreeing or disagreeing with you muffy. 2 miles is barely even aerobic, it is a distance were aerobic fitness can be tested, but 2 mile hard runs are something 800m and 400m usually do. I'd prefer to know my short sprinters could complete a mile at a reasonble pace say 6:30 or better for HS boys and 7:30 or better for HS girls in a TT before the in season starts, than having them dog a 2 mile run. So i do believe that aerobic fitness is good and even an occasional long run is nice, but I also believe that power and local muscular endurance of leg muscles are as more important heading into the competitive season. The only way I see a short sprinter(100-200) doing any distnace work is if they are so unfit they have a poor power to body weight ratio. Thus I will make this type of runner lift heavy then do medium long runs in terms of time or high volume 200-300's until I see a body weight drop of about 10%. If they don't want to do it, then I tell them in a private session how digusting and hard their performances are going to feel like.
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Member
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Hey guys. I naturally have a lot more muscle/mass in my chest, at least compared to my other muscles. If this is how I grow naturally(and i powerlift/sprint), is this a problem for a 100m sprinter? I have heard that too much mass on top makes one top heavy for sprinting. So really, what I'm trying to ask is, if I naturally have a big chest for the rest of my body(43-44" chest, 14.75" arms, and 24" legs), am I already in a bad situation? Or should I not worry, because this is how my body naturally gains?
Thanks,
Steel -
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leonard scott and shawn crawford have huge upperbodies as does john capel who is pretty well built himself being a former football player. nothing to worry about in my opinion
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Participant
upper body mass is a detriment when it messes with your power ratios. However, I would cutback on any heavy upper body lifting or trying to make yourself look like Mr Olympia. If you do the proper training your upper body will gain the mass neccesary to do powerful lower body lifts and after time it will make you look like you're ripped too.
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Participant
Depends on how you look at it. Many believe in the organism as a whole and increasing strength in the upper body helping organism strength (as a whole) and helping increase speed. Obvious factors like being able to support heavy weight on squats and the forces through one's body as max speed are other good points.
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Participant
Doing squats, deadlifts, snatches, cleans, jerks, and push presses will give you plenty of upper body work. You can augment that work once or twice a week, but working on movements that may or may not increase power while adding significant mass to the upper body will be significantly detrimental to power and force generation.
Quite honestly you could make the case like muffy that increasing aerobic capacity and power fit into the whole organism argument as well. I tend to agree with that approach. However, there needs to be some constraints, do you want to be a bodybuilder, powerlifter, a distance runner, or a sprinter. If you want to be a sprinter, you have to move away from things that are not related to pure speed, speed endurance, pure power and power endurance related.
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Participant
I am not actually agreeing or disagreeing with you muffy. 2 miles is barely even aerobic, it is a distance were aerobic fitness can be tested, but 2 mile hard runs are something 800m and 400m usually do. I'd prefer to know my short sprinters could complete a mile at a reasonble pace say 6:30 or better for HS boys and 7:30 or better for HS girls in a TT before the in season starts, than having them dog a 2 mile run. So i do believe that aerobic fitness is good and even an occasional long run is nice, but I also believe that power and local muscular endurance of leg muscles are as more important heading into the competitive season. The only way I see a short sprinter(100-200) doing any distnace work is if they are so unfit they have a poor power to body weight ratio. Thus I will make this type of runner lift heavy then do medium long runs in terms of time or high volume 200-300's until I see a body weight drop of about 10%. If they don't want to do it, then I tell them in a private session how digusting and hard their performances are going to feel like.
you'd be suprised how much aerobic work you can done with regular speed-power training. also, circuits are probably a better way to do your energy system work with short sprints than lots of tempo..,.. especially if the running techique is not sound
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Participant
Aerobic ability has far less of an effect on 100m times than overall organism strength. As said before, there are better ways to go about aerobic work than 1 mile and 2 mile runs, including extensive and intensive tempo, circuits, pool work, and hurdle mobility.
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Keymaster
I agree with Kebba. Ditch the milage (even if it is Fartlek) and use tempo and / or circuits to develop aerobic capacity. Back to the subject at hand though, in my opinion speed development will best come from increases in technical efficiency and relative (not necessarily absolute) lower body and core strength and power. If adding additional body weight detracts from either of these factors it won't be a benefit.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Member
Doing squats, deadlifts, snatches, cleans, jerks, and push presses will give you plenty of upper body work. You can augment that work once or twice a week, but working on movements that may or may not increase power while adding significant mass to the upper body will be significantly detrimental to power and force generation.
Quite honestly you could make the case like muffy that increasing aerobic capacity and power fit into the whole organism argument as well. I tend to agree with that approach. However, there needs to be some constraints, do you want to be a bodybuilder, powerlifter, a distance runner, or a sprinter. If you want to be a sprinter, you have to move away from things that are not related to pure speed, speed endurance, pure power and power endurance related.
What davan is referring to in organism strength, is the crossover between upper and lower body strength. It really has nothing to do with size it's all about neuromuscular coordination. The training that would bring about the most hypertrophy mainly taxes the PNS, but heavy low rep lifts also are very taxing on the CNS. In this way you can bring about strength improvements without overly taxing the specific muscles in training. This idea has several applications, for example before competition stopping heavy lower body lifts, but continue with upper body lifts or really hitting upper body strength hard when injury prevents running and/or lower body lifting.
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Participant
If you are going to work upper body and stress the whole organism concept you need only such things as bench press, dips, and pull-ups as these are multi joint movements although maybe the dips are not. You are kidding yourself if you think there is crossover from training in terms of strength and power from upper body to lower body. I've seen enough tweety birds walking around the gym to know while their arms and shoulder carriage could handle a deadlift or clean weight their legs would never produce the force necessary to accomplish a succesful lift. That said, there is evidence that supports neuromuscular facilitation and recruitment in extremeties that are unused because of injuries while training the other extremity.
On a personal note, I continue to bench press well over 200 pounds without hardly ever doing bench presses and when I do bench press exercises I only use dumbbells except in cases of testing max strength and max muscular endurance. Most of this ability comes from the amount of lifts I do with my legs and the heavy weights that have to be stabilized by muscles of the upper body from doing heavy and/or powerful lower body lifts. Just the other day some of the HS XC runners challenged me to do one seated military press of 115lbs, I did 10 of them.
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Member
You're personal note is exactly what I'm talking about. Cleans and Squats recruit a very high number of motor units, thus they tax the CNS very significantly. The bench press recruits only about 1/3 of the MU's, and is not as taxing.
I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying, this is merely a training tool at your disposal not something to base you're training around. Squats and cleans are of the highest importance in my weight training. It is simply an excellent way to keep your CNS sharp, when lower body lifts are not an option either because of injury or to minimize fatigue to the muscles most involved in sprinting.
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Participant
LOL, you're confusing me then.
People think I am strange for not working with upper body lifts, they just don't understand how taxing squats, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, and jerks are on the upper body as well. Nor do I see many of them even attempt to do Pull-ups or dips which I consider the best conditioners of upper body strength and muscular endurance. As a coach I get tired of seeing so many 215-225lb max bench pressers in HS that can't a. bench 185lbs 6-8 times b. can't do 1 pull-up c. can't do 5 dips.
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Participant
Thanks guys.
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Keymaster
Danimal-
You are saying the same thing as 800prince. There is a transfer effect of lower body training to the upperbody (and vice versa). I don't know how much of this is neurological though as much of it can also be attributed to endocrine response, in which case.ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
In June of 1996 Maurice Greene competed at the US Olympic trials at a weight of 155 lbs.
After being defeated in the Semi's, Maurice came to John Smith at UCLA –
Smith would do many things with Greene from there over the next year, throughly tapping into his ability's.
Within 8 months Greene added 18 lbs onto an already very sturdy frame for a 5'90 sprinter.
2 Months later he was world Champion and never looked back, racing the remainder of his career at 175-182 lbs.
Greene found his Optimal Weight-To-Power balance during this time. You must find yours.
Just adding 15 to 20 lbs. is like messing with Vegas, it's all a roll of the dice.
It could ruin you – It could make you better than you've ever been.
You have to do it right. Spend lots of time in the weight room – while at the same time – Always, spending More time on the Track.
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Participant
agreed with big10. if you weight train right youll find your perfect weight.
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Participant
one of my coaches told me that it doesnt matter how much you lift as long as you stretch you will increase speed. a kid who ran track for us a few years ago had a 45 inch chest and ran a 10.76……
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Participant
your coach gave you bull. i dont stretch anymore and im as fast as ive ever been.
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Keymaster
one of my coaches told me that it doesnt matter how much you lift as long as you stretch you will increase speed. a kid who ran track for us a few years ago had a 45 inch chest and ran a 10.76……
Stretching alone won't make you faster. If you needed to be as fast as possible and had to chose between stretching and weight lifting to get there it would be an easy choice- weight lifting.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
i know i meant that if i lift and stretch after i lift i will increase speed rather than lifting and not stretching which they told me wouldnt be beneficial at all
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Participant
i know i meant that if i lift and stretch after i lift i will increase speed rather than lifting and not stretching which they told me wouldnt be beneficial at all
The don't know what they are talking about. It will still be beneficial, possibly not as much though if it seriously affects tightness. That is only if it affects tightness and muscle tonus though.
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Participant
I believe some of you are a little confused.
It's range of motion that can aid in increasing your speed.
Too oftenly we confuse range of motion with stretching – when they are not the same thing.
Stretching is used primarily for recovery – difusing latic bulidup ect., and also (very lightly), for warmup.
Range of motion exercises will possibly <if he or she needs it> improve a sprinters technique, Possibly increasing his or her speed.
However, there are a few good stretches which aid in range of motion.
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Participant
If you want to get huge fine. If you want to spend 10 hours in the weightroom everyday good for you.
But a sprinter Must be a sprinter all the while.
If your on this earth to run ~ you must not forget that you're a Runner. You Must RUN.Becoming wickedly powerful is only going to help you from what I've seen, but don't spend too much time away from what comes first.
Don't go and alienate yourself from what you really are, a sprinter.
I've spent what seems like forever, teaching myself how to be a sprinter again.
You see first, I had to become an animal, a dog – running for no reason ~ running the streets, running in the grass. First I had to be wild.
Weight training is Great for a sprinter so long as it Never becomes the #1 in your workout routine.
Because if it does, let me Guarantee you because I Know – you will step foot on that track and feel Completely out of place, completely out of touch with what it is you set out to do – forgetting to be a Sprinter first and you can't let your Body forget That OK?
"To make a fighter you gotta strip them down to bare wood: but you can't just tell 'em to forget everything you know. You gotta make 'em forget even their bones… make 'em so tired they only listen to you, only hear your voice, only do what you say and nothing else… show 'em how to keep their balance and take it away from the other guy… how to generate momentum off their right toe and how to flex your knees when you fire a jab… how to fly back and up so that the other guy doesn't want to come after you. Then you gotta show 'em all over again. Over and over and over… till they think they're born that way."
You must spend so much time Sprinting
Over and over and over… till you think that you were born that way.Don't forget it in your mind
And sure as hell don't let your body forget it.
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Keymaster
i know i meant that if i lift and stretch after i lift i will increase speed rather than lifting and not stretching which they told me wouldnt be beneficial at all
This is very old-school thinking….tell your coaches to check out some of the articles on this site and start learning on the forum.
ELITETRACK Founder
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